


Something dumb to do

by CheapLemonIceLolly



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Fluff, Getting Together, M/M, accidentally married, married in vegas
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-14
Updated: 2018-01-14
Packaged: 2019-03-04 17:29:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,350
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13369641
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CheapLemonIceLolly/pseuds/CheapLemonIceLolly
Summary: It’s not that it’s Dylan’s responsibility to fix things like this, not exactly.  It’s just that Connor’s completely useless in any crisis that’s not directly hockey related.  This is definitely no exception.Connor gets blind drunk in Vegas for his birthday and wakes up married with no memory of what happened.  As usual, it’s up to Dylan to fix it.





	Something dumb to do

**Author's Note:**

> Of course I wrote a fic for Davo’s birthday and it ended up being mostly about Dylan. IT’S LIKE I HAVE A SICKNESS, OKAY. Lots of handwaving about 1) Nevada marriage law (though I did do a little research!) 2) how pro athlete management teams actually work 3) the Roadrunners schedule and 4) the repercussions of skipping professional sports practice with a transparently fake excuse. But I just wanted some sweet romcom fluff with a happy ending, okay. Dylan Strome/happiness is the real OTP.
> 
> I have a feeling there are going to be a lot of Married-In-Vegas fics this week for some reason :D
> 
> Mild content warning for closeted characters and some anxiety about being outed, though nobody ever is. Also terrible drunk decision making!
> 
> PS: I always forget to say this, but I'm on tumblr! Come talk to me [@lemonicelolly!](https://lemonicelolly.tumblr.com)

Dylan opens his eyes and immediately wishes he hadn't.

His head feels like someone pried it open, scooped out the contents and then threw up in it.  Last night is a brightly coloured carnival blur; he remembers slot machines, a guy dressed as Elvis, a woman in a glittery gown, and a _lot_ of shots, plus laughing so hard he and Connor had to hold each other up because their legs stopped working.  He has a vague memory of really urgently wanting to find Ryan at some point, but he can’t remember why and he doesn’t know if he actually did.  He’s just reaching for his phone on the nightstand when there’s a knock at the door.

“Room service!”

Dylan’s wearing nothing but boxers and he doesn’t remember ordering room service at any point, but who knows what he actually did last night, so he yanks on the impossibly fluffy robe he finds on the floor (letting Connor pay for stuff has its perks, this place is fucking fancy) and shuffles to the door.

It’s a tribute to just _how_ fancy the hotel is that the woman standing outside with a trolley doesn’t scream in terror at the sight of him, because he is _not_ feeling his best.  She’s such a pro she doesn’t even flinch, just gives him a very dazzling American smile and says, “Good morning, Mr McDavid, I hope you slept well.”

Dylan scrunches his face up at her.  He feels like he’s trying to think through fog.  “I’m not Mr McDavid,” he says,  “just running up his credit card,” and she laughs like he’s said something hilarious and steers her trolley into the room.  It’s not until she’s setting it up near the obnoxiously plush sofa that he registers the bottle of champagne and two glasses alongside the coffee and covered plates.  And then the little gold embossed card that says “CONGRATULATIONS” in very curly script.

“Oh, uh,” he says, hovering awkwardly.  He’s not really used to ultra rich people things just yet; like, his bank account has more zeroes than he’s ever seen right now but it’s really only been a few months and he’s got that nagging worry in the back of his head that it might all be over any day now and he’ll have to go get a job at McDonalds or something.  He probably is technically a rich person but he still thinks of himself as more rich-person-adjacent, really.  So the kind of room service where they actually come into your room with a trolley and don’t care about you standing around in your underwear is about as weird and uncomfortable as the kind of hotel room that actually has a gilded fireplace and a separate room for the bed.  He feels like he’s very much in the wrong place, and the hangover isn’t helping.  “I think you’ve made a mistake?  That’s not mine.”

The room service lady laughs again like he’s making a joke.  “Well, maybe,” she says jovially.  “But I won’t tell if you won’t.”

Dylan doesn’t really get it, but he’s just remembered the whole American tipping thing so that at least gives him something to do while she’s fussing with the napkins, so he goes back into the bedroom to try and find his wallet.

As soon as he opens the door there’s a huffing sound from the bed and the pile of luxuriously white bedding _moves_.

Dylan freezes.  Did he bring a _girl_ back here last night?  Or...oh _no_...

Okay, no, okay this is fine.  He’s an adult, he can hook up with a stranger in Vegas if he wants to, jeez.  And it’s not like he’s famous enough that anyone would bother to gossip about him anyway; it’s _probably_ not going to get back to the Yotes and make them think twice about him (thrice?  Is there a word for doing something a fourth time?).  Unless he drunkenly ran his mouth off and tried to impress her by telling her he’s a hockey superstar which...actually does sound like something he would do...but he’s getting ahead of himself.  Girls aren’t, like, monsters.  It’s probably fine.

He definitely wouldn’t have picked up a guy, no matter how drunk he was, he _wouldn’t_.  He’s not _stupid_.

Anyway, there’s a lady in the other room with a weird romantic breakfast for two who’s waiting for her tip, so the mystery...girl? in the bed question is going to have to wait for now.  Dylan finds his pants on the floor where he flung them at some point last night and digs his wallet out.  He can’t remember the rules about tipping so he errs on the side of caution and probably way overdoes it.  Look, he’s got a lot going on, okay?

After the room service lady is gone Dylan goes back into the bedroom to face the music, but the bed’s empty and he can hear the shower running in the ensuite, so he sits down to wait.  His head’s pounding a bit and he still feels unbelievably seedy, so he just sort of sags on the side of the bed and lets his eyes wander around the room.  He’s not sure how he’s managed to spread so many clothes around in the space of one night, but there’s crap everywhere, ugh.  He’s going to have to clean that shit up before he flies back to Tucson.  God, he’s going to have to _fly in a plane_ and then play a hockey game and pretend he’s not a human toilet bowl right now.  Why did he let Connor talk him into this?

While his mind is spiralling, his eyes fall on something shiny on the nightstand.  He squints at it, trying to tell what it is from a distance, but he can’t work it out, so he gets up to look.

It’s a gold ring.  Like...a _wedding_ ring.

Shit.  Oh _shit_.  Did he hook up with someone _married?_

Dylan’s just about to have a panic attack when the door to the bathroom opens and he spins around, clutching his fluffy hotel robe to his chest like a shield.  But it’s not some mystery married person that comes out, it’s Connor, wearing an identical robe and towelling off his hair.

Wait, what?

He looks unfairly fresh for someone who turned twenty-one in Vegas two days ago and only just stopped partying, especially given he was off his face before Dylan even got here.  Meanwhile Dylan’s mouth tastes like something crawled into it and died.

“Um,” says Connor, looking slightly surprised.  “Hi?”

Dylan’s brain has suddenly kicked into overdrive.  He feels like he’s in one of those crime solving montages from CSI or something, all the little observations falling into place like puzzle pieces.  Because now he’s realised the shit all over the floor isn’t his stuff, it’s Connor’s (as if Dylan would buy orange socks), and he’s also just noticed Connor’s wearing a _fucking wedding ring_ , shiny and gold, that exactly matches the one on the nightstand.

Okay, so he’s not in his own room, he’s in _Connor’s_ room, he vaguely remembers now that Connor forgot to book a second one because he was wasted, and just told Dylan he should crash with him for the night.  And the more he thinks about that breakfast spread, the more obvious it is that it’s a _honeymoon_ breakfast.  The champagne, the rose petals on the tray, the heart shaped waffles and the little fucking strawberry pieces cut into even more heart shapes.

Dylan’s not, like, a genius or anything, but even he can put two and two together.  Elvis, honeymoon breakfast, the ring in the bedroom.  

Connor got _married_ last night.  

Connor McDavid, perfect golden boy, drunk married some _random girl_ in Vegas, and now Dylan’s going to have to fix it.

Fuck.

*

It’s not that it’s Dylan’s responsibility to fix things like this, not exactly.  It’s just that Connor’s completely useless in any crisis that’s not directly hockey related.  This is definitely no exception.

“Married.   _Married?_  How could I be _married?_ ”

This is like the tenth time he’s said that in the last twenty minutes.  He’s also stress-eaten all the waffles by himself and Dylan is extremely hungover and starting to get really hungry, so he responds a little more harshly than he probably should.

“Good question.  Like, sure, you’re about to be a gazillionaire but have you seen yourself?  Christ.”  Connor looks up at him, his hair still fluffy from the shower and standing on end from the anxious way he’s been running his hands through it.  He looks so comically offended Dylan wants to laugh.  “Sorry, man.  I’m hungry.  And I feel like I slept in a dumpster.”

Connor wrinkles his nose.  “I wasn’t going to say anything, but you _smell_ like you slept in a dumpster.”

Dylan kicks him under the table.  “Alright, don’t get personal.”  He ignores the face Connor pulls at him and pulls up a search on his phone for Nevada marriage records  “The first thing we need to do is find out if you really did get married, and if you did, who you got married _to_.”

And hope whoever it was didn’t know who Connor is, or how much he’s worth, of course.  He doesn’t say that bit out loud, though.  If Connor’s not already worrying about it, there’s no need to stress him out even more.

“Hey, look, good news,” he says.  “Marriage licenses are on the public record so you can just go down to to the...I don’t know, records office?  And ask to see it.”

Connor makes an odd sort of choking noise.

“Public record?  Like anyone can go in and ask if I’m married?” 

Dylan blinks.  “I mean, I guess…?  Well, they can ask if you _wanted_ to get married, anyway.”

“How is that _good news?_ ” he demands, looking pale and horrified.  “Someone’s going to _find out_.” He sounds like he’s on the edge of panicking again but there’s no waffles left, so Dylan surreptitiously snags the unopened champagne bottle and pushes it out of Connor’s reach.  “Some reporter’s going to find out and I’m going to end up all over Twitter and then... Oh my god, I’m Britney Spears. This is a nightmare.”

Dylan splutters. “Britney Spears?” he repeats. “That’s the comparison you’re going with?”

“It’s the _exact same_ situation.  What am I going to do?”

“You know,” Dylan says, “I think I read somewhere that Jon Bon Jovi got married in Vegas too, like, in the eighties.  Him and his wife are still together, even.  Maybe you’re Bon Jovi?”

Connor does not look as if he finds that suggestion comforting, or as if he finds the situation as funny as it’s becoming to Dylan.  “I don’t even know who I married,” he exclaims, “I don’t want to be stuck with them for thirty years!”

“Hey,” Dylan reaches out and clasps a steadying hand around his wrist.  “You won’t be, don’t freak out.  We’ll find out who it was, get in touch with them, and then you can get a...whatsit...cancellation?”

“Annulment,” Connor says, shaking his head.  “I guess.  Or a...a divorce?  I don’t even know how any of that works.  Fuck.”

Dylan might be in way over his head here, but if there’s one thing he’d good at, it’s calming Connor down when he gets too stuck in his own catastrophic thoughts.  He keeps hold of his wrist, rubbing his thumb in slow, soothing circles, and picks his phone up again with the other hand.

“That’s what the internet’s for, right?” he says, typing in a search for _anulment vegas_ (turns out it’s spelled annulment, but google knows what he meant anyway).  Under all the ads for lawyers, he finds what he’s looking for, a site with a list of reasons for getting a marriage annulled instead of just getting divorced.  He doesn’t really know the difference, but he has a feeling a divorce would be a lot messier.  Not to mention more expensive.

“Don’t worry about reporters,” he says absently as he scrolls down the list.  “This is Vegas, it’s not exactly a hockey town.  If anyone’s checking the daily marriage records for celebrity shotgun weddings they’re going to be looking for, like, Kardashians, not-- oh, okay, here we go.” He stops scrolling.  “You can get an annulment if you were drunk and you wouldn’t have got married otherwise.  So that’s easy.  I’m assuming “I literally can’t remember this happening” counts as too drunk.”

He glances up, but Connor’s not looking at him.  He’s staring down at his hands where they’re splayed on the table, frowning and chewing his lip.  He’s still got the wedding ring on.

“Do _you_ remember anything from last night?” he says despondently, without looking away from his hands.  “Anything at all?”

Dylan wonders if this is going to turn into some kind of _The Hangover_ situation where they run all over town following wacky clues to find Connor’s mystery wife.

“Only, like, flashes,” Dylan says, shrugging.

Really, the last twenty four hours are kind of a blur.  He remembers getting a call from Connor on his day off, day-drunk and giggly and obviously still raging from his birthday celebrations the night before.  Seriously, imagine being so valuable to the NHL that they arrange for you to turn 21 in Vegas and then get a week off.  Dylan would be jealous if drunk Davo wasn’t so fucking funny.  Honestly, that’s probably the reason why he let himself be convinced when Connor said, “hey, heyyyy you’re like only a couple of hours away right?  You should come and party with us!” and then “Stromerrrrrr you gotta, it’s for my _birthday_ ,” and “oh who cares about practice I _neeeeeed_ you here.”

And of course sober Connor would never advocate skipping practice on purpose, and Dylan would _certainly_ never claim a family emergency to go get drunk with his buddy in Vegas, because he’s a serious athlete and leadership material and dedicated to putting in the work and deeply committed to making the NHL and blah blah blah.  But it’s _Davo_.  The normal rules don’t really apply.

He remembers getting on a plane with a ticket drunk Connor insisted on buying for him (“Haven’t you heard?  I’m loaded now.  Plus I won like fifty bucks on the slots, so.  Money to burrrrrn.” He’s even more of a fucking dork than usual when he’s drunk) and getting to the stupidly fancy hotel, and Connor hugging him and smelling so much like a distillery that Dylan thought he might get drunk just breathing close to him.  And then...nothing but blurry snatches, like a half remembered dream.  

He does remember feeling _happy_ , though.  Just stupidly, overwhelmingly happy; it’s like a warm golden wash over everything else that’s mixed up in his memory from the day before.  So obviously he didn’t think Connor getting married was weird or a bad idea, not while it was happening.  Either he was just unbelievably drunk at the time or…

“You don’t think it could’ve been someone you _know_ , do you?” he wonders out loud, frowning.  Connor’s head jerks up.  “A high school girlfriend or something, I don’t know.  D’you have any, like, teenage crushes that might have suddenly got a happy ending?”

Connor stares at him in undisguised horror.

“Okay, or...not…?” says Dylan, bemused.  “Don’t freak out again, I’m sure it was just, uh...a complete stranger you met in a casino.”

That makes Connor visibly relax, which is weird, but okay.  Everything about this situation is weird, Dylan’s just going to have to roll with it.  He goes back to reading the list of annulment reasons.  

“Oh, hey, undisclosed criminal history’s a deal breaker too.  Maybe you’ll get lucky and find out she’s a bank robber or something.”  

Connor doesn’t react, as if he hasn’t even heard him.

“What am I supposed to _do?_ ” he asks the table in a small, bleak voice.  Dylan rolls his eyes.

“You go down to the county records office when it opens and find out who you married,” he says, as patiently as he can.  It’s not like he isn’t used to Connor being useless in a crisis, but he kind of assumed he’d learned better ways of coping than “just ask Stromer what to do” after two years.  Dylan wonders who fixes non-hockey things for him in Edmonton, and then feels unaccountably sad about it for a moment.  “Once you know for sure, then I guess you better call your lawyer or something.”

“Right,” Connor says, nodding.  “Lawyer.  I have one of those.”

“Right,” Dylan says. “It’s gonna be fine.  In the meantime, it’s…” he glances back at his phone, and then leaps out of his chair in horror.  “Shit, it’s eleven o’clock?  Oh fuck, I have a game tonight, I need to get on a plane, like, _now_.”

Connor gapes at him.

“You’re leaving?   _Now?_ ”

“Your birthday’s not actually an international holiday yet, bud, I still have to work.”

“But you’ve already missed morning skate, haven’t you?” Connor whines.  “It’s not like you’re going to play, can’t you just…”

“Not everyone gets the NHL handed to them on a silver platter, you know,” Dylan snaps.  “I already pushed my luck coming here in the first place, I can’t just blow off my fucking job because you want me to.”

Connor flinches.  He takes a breath and opens his mouth like he’s about to snap back, which Dylan would probably deserve because that silver platter thing was kind of shitty, but a second later he sighs, deflating.  “Yeah, no, of course not.  Sorry.  I’m just.  I’m really freaking out.”

“I know,” Dylan sighs.  “Sorry.”  He circles around the table and smooths Connor’s dumb fluffy hair back, and then musses it up again because...he doesn’t know, the smoothing felt a little too affectionate or something.  “I told you, you’re gonna be fine.  Just...don’t shave your head, ok Britney?”

Connor looks up at him and smiles weakly.  “Fuck you I’d look great with a shaved head.”

“You would, for real, look like Voldemort,” Dylan counters, ruffling his hair again.  “And not, like, almost hot Ralph Fiennes Voldemort, that freaky Voldemort on the back of the guy’s head from the first movie.”

Connor actually laughs properly at that, so Dylan figures he got away with the little “hot Ralph Fiennes” slip.  Not that he thinks Davo would disown him for thinking Ralph Fiennes is hot, or anything - he did that whole You Can Play ad and used the rainbow stick tape and whatever, and he’s not a complete asshole - it’s just Dylan tries to keep that stuff, like, compartmentalised from hockey and hockey guys.  It’s just easier that way.

He probably needs to stop playing with Connor’s hair, on that note.

“Call me when you find out who you married, okay?” he says, letting go only a little reluctantly.  “Need to know who to give my shovel talk to, eh?”

*

He should try and nap on the plane, even though it’s only a short flight, but Dylan can’t sleep.  He feels anxious and guilty about running off to get drunk in another state the day before a game, as if he was _ever_ going to make it back in time, and he feels anxious and guilty about leaving Connor alone to deal with the aftermath too.  He can’t win, at this point. Hopefully Davo won’t have a meltdown in the county records office.

The flight’s too short for a movie, and staring out the window is just making him worry more, so he tries playing some mindless game on his phone to try and get his brain to switch off.  It doesn’t work, but he does realise after a few minutes that there’s one source of mystery wife clues they never thought to check, and it’s right here in his hand.  As if Connor got _married_ and Dylan didn’t take a single photo or video of it on his phone?

He flicks open the photostream, feeling like Sherlock Holmes on the verge of a brilliant breakthrough that could blow the case wide open.  But there’s no wedding photos at all.  Maybe he was too drunk to remember to take any, by that point, or maybe Connor was all serious about the whole thing and told him to get off his fucking phone and be _present_ in the _moment_.  That does sound like something he’d do, actually.  In fact there’s only one photo from the night before, and it’s...well, it’s a weird one.

It’s a photo of Dylan, that obviously someone else has taken for him, standing in what looks like a fancy casino elevator with a strange woman he’s never seen before.  For a moment he’s like...was she a fan?  But if she was a hockey fan, why would he have the photo on _his_ phone?  And, maybe more importantly, if she was a hockey fan why would she want a photo with _him_ when Connor Fucking McDavid was right there?

He squints at her face trying to work out if maybe _she’s_ someone famous.  She looks too old to be Connor’s mystery wife.  She’s attractive and glamorous and all that, but she’s, like, their moms’ age.  Her hair’s all coiffed, and she’s got a really sparkly dress on, but it was _Vegas_ , that could mean she’s famous or it could just mean she’s...in Vegas.  Maybe there’s something a little familiar about her face?  But…

But…

Oh.  Now he remembers.

*

“I think I know what Celine Dion looks like, Davo. I have been Canadian _my whole life_.”

“Well then they need to revoke your passport because that was definitely not Celine Dion.”

Dylan squints at the picture on his phone, but his head’s spinning too much to make out the faces clearly.  There’s just him towering over a glamorous looking lady in a sparkly gown.  Wow, he is really drunk.

“Some random woman wouldn’t have let me take a photo with her if she _wasn’t_ Celine Dion,” he says, frowning.  “That’s just weird.”

Connor leans against the mirrored wall of the elevator, giggling helplessly.  “ _You’re_ weird.  You totally just terrorised some random woman into taking a photo with you.  What do you even know about Celine Dion anyway?”

“Um, she’s a _national treasure_ ,” Dylan says, jabbing a finger in the air in Connor’s direction.  “And she does shows in Vegas all the time.  Everyone knows about Celine Dion.  As a fellow national treasure you should know that.”  Connor rolls his eyes so hard his whole head tips back against the wall, and there’s a moment where Dylan’s drunk brain gets stuck staring at the long line of his neck and the way his throat moves when he swallows, and that’s dangerous territory so he starts singing to distract himself.

“Oh my god,” Connor laughs.  “Are you singing?”

“You love it when I sing,” Dylan tells him, grinning.

“I do _not_ ,” he grins back, giving Dylan a shove.  “Literally nobody loves it when you sing.  Bring fake Celine Dion back.”  He forgets to let go at the end of the shove, and they both end up stumbling into the other wall, giggling and clinging drunkenly to each other.

“But when you touch me like this,” Dylan warbles, “And you hold me like that, I just have to admit that it's all coming back to me--’

Connor buries his face in his shoulder.  “Oh my god, _stop_.”

“It’s hard to be _lieve_ but it’s all coming back to me--”

“I’m going to kick you, as soon as I get my balance back I’m going to kick you so hard--”

The lift door opens on a middle aged couple in matching hawaiian shirts who stare at them with identical expressions of alarm.  Dylan pauses singing just long enough to say “Sorry sir, ma’am, you might want to wait for the next one,” and then launches straight back into _It’s All Coming Back to Me Now_ while Connor cries with laughter, trying weakly to punch him in the chest.

“I hate you,” he gasps against the side of Dylan’s neck, while Dylan wraps both arms around him so he can’t hit him any more.  “You’re a nightmare.”

“Oh please,” Dylan scoffs.  “You love me.  You love me so much you made me miss practice just to party with you.  And you _love_ practice.”

Connor stops laughing and lifts his head to look at him.  He’s all flushed, and bleary eyed, and his hair’s a mess, and he’s very, very close, still holding on to the front of Dylan’s shirt.

“Yeah,” he says, all kind of breathless.  From laughing, it’s from the laughing.  “I do.  Sorry.”

Dylan wants to say “What are you sorry for?” but he’s kind of stuck again, stuck on how close Connor is, and how warm, and how the sort of glassy unfocused look in his eyes is probably just drunkenness but looks almost like something else too.  So what actually comes out is, “I’d miss a million practices if you asked me to.”

“Holy shit,” Connor says, sounding more awed than mocking. “That is so cheesy.”

There’s a moment, a long suspended moment where Dylan feels suddenly very sober, and both hyper aware of his body and also as if he’s just taken a step outside of it.  This is a thing, his rational one-step-back brain says, that could go horribly wrong if you’re misinterpreting it.  You need to slow down and be sensible about this.

And then Connor kisses him, and his rational brain shuts down completely.

*

On the plane, Dylan feels like he might throw up.

Not about the kissing.  That’s...that’s all extremely blurry but what he remembers of that part is...well, he wishes he remembers more of it.  But the mystery wife implications are suddenly getting a whole lot more alarming.

It takes him a moment to realise the swooping sensation in his stomach is only half panic, and half normal sensations because the plane is actually descending; he’s home already.  He goes through the motions of disembarking, getting his bag down from the overhead compartment in a daze, shuffling off the plane so lost in his own head he barely remembers to smile and say thank you to the flight attendant on the way out.  He switches his phone off airplane mode as soon as he can, and then stands in the terminal staring at the screen until the message from Connor comes through.

_CALL ME AS SOON AS YOU LAND_

They wouldn’t have.   _Surely_ they didn’t.  Even if Dylan’s drunk Celine Dion memory is real, even if they did make out in an elevator, they couldn’t have got _married_.  That’s insane.  No matter how drunk they both were, some things are just impossible.  Instinct and common sense and fucking… _PR training_ has to kick in at some point, doesn’t it?

Dylan remembers the feeling of urgently needing to find Ryan while drunk in Vegas and shoves it down out of the way.  That could have been anything.  He probably wanted him to buy another round of drinks or something, not...not be a witness at Dylan’s fucking _wedding_.

Fuck.

Well, there’s no point delaying the inevitable.  He brings up Connor’s number with slightly shaking hands and calls him, right there in the airport.

“Um,” Connor says when he answers the phone, and any doubt Dylan was still clinging to disappears at the sound of his voice.  “Um, I don’t really know how to tell you this, but…”

“It was me,” Dylan says dully.  “We got married last night.  You and me.”

There’s a long silence.

“Yeah,” Connor says at last in a small voice.  “Yes, that’s...we did.”

It should be a relief, is the thing.  It’s exactly the sort of dumb, codependent shit people would expect them to do as a joke that accidentally went too far.  Hey bro, oh my god, wouldn’t it be _so funny_ if we got married right now?  It’s way more irresponsible than Connor’s squeaky clean hockey Jesus image, but his publicity people could definitely spin it as youthful hijinks and everyone would just shake their heads and say “boys will be boys.”  They could get the marriage annulled on the basis of, like, dumb drunken decision making, and everyone would forget about it in a couple of weeks.  At most it’d turn into one of those quirky little stories reporters bring up ten years from now when they want to make Connor seem more relatable - hey, remember that time when you got drunk and married your friend from juniors? - or when Dylan’s retired and he’s reaching for old stories that make him seem relevant and interesting - hey, did I ever tell you I was legally married to THE Connor McDavid for like twenty four hours?

But he _remembers_.  He remembers Connor pressed up against him in the elevator, warm and heavy and real, and the way he went all tense as soon as their lips met, only to have all the tension melt away again when Dylan kissed him back.  As if he was ever going to do anything else.  Dylan had never even thought about it - had deliberately not let himself think about it - but he knew right away that this was where he wanted to be, where he was supposed to be.

It wasn’t a joke, not for him.  He doesn’t know how they got from kissing in an elevator to fucking _married_ , but he does know that.  It was real to him, even if it was rash and monumentally stupid.  And nobody else needs to know that, obviously, but _he’ll_ know, and that changes everything.

“Okay,” he says, sounding far more calm than he feels.  He thinks he might be in shock.  “Okay, that’s.  It’s fine, we can just...um…”

“It’s _fine?_ ” Connor says incredulously.  “Do you hear yourself?  We got _married_ , Dylan, what the fuck.  Nothing about this is fine.”

“Alright don’t yell at me,” Dylan snaps.  “I have to go, I’m still at the airport and I’ve got to get all my shit organised before the game and...I’ll call you tomorrow, okay?  I can’t deal with this right now.”

And he hangs up.  He feels bad about it, but, well.   _Nothing about this is fine_ kind of stings a bit.  

Maybe he was the only one who thought it was real after all.

“You know being your buddy’s wingman doesn't really count as a family emergency, right?” Nick says as soon as Dylan walks in the door at home, making him jump. Nick just raises an eyebrow at him. “Everyone knows who turned 21 on Saturday, man.  Your excuse was pretty weak.”

Actually it does count as a family emergency; literally everything about Connor is a family emergency right now, because they’re _fucking married_ and it’s an _ongoing emergency_ , but Dylan can’t exactly tell anyone that, not even Nick.  He just scowls.

“Jeez, you look like shit,” Nick says cheerfully, not picking up on the vibe at all.  “Guess you had fun at least, eh?”

And the thing is...yeah, he did have fun.  His memories of Vegas, hazy as they are, are nothing but fun.  He still can’t remember any more of the wedding than a lot of pink neon, an Elvis impersonator, and an overwhelming feeling of happiness, but that in itself is pretty telling.  And Connor…

Connor thinks nothing about this is fine.

God, he’s fucked.

“I guess,” he grunts, without looking at Nick.  “I need a shower.”

He doesn’t get to play that night, obviously, just has to sit and watch the game and reflect on what he’s done like a naughty kid.  But it’s calming, somehow, the chill air of the rink and its familiar ice-and-concrete smell, and the swishing, cracking sounds of the game, and being somewhere that feels safe and good and familiar.  He didn’t expect to ever think of Tucson as _home_ , and of course he doesn’t want to be here in the minors forever, but right now it’s comforting to be somewhere he feels confident and in control, although obviously playing would be better.

It helps that they win, even if it is without him.  It’s comforting to be part of something good, too.

What isn’t comforting is knowing he has to call Connor like he said he would and work out what they’re going to do.  He’s still wandering aimlessly around the apartment at ten am the next day, trying to talk himself into making the call, when Nick pops up and says, “Uh, I think you’ve got a visitor?”

It’s Connor.  He gives a very uncomfortable half smile and an awkward little wave.

“Hi?” Dylan says, and it comes out like a question. His palms feel sweaty, suddenly.

“Hi,” Connor agrees.

Nick’s looking back and forth between them, frowning curiously, so Dylan ushers Connor away from him and towards his room.  This is definitely not going to be the kind of conversation that needs an audience.

“What are you doing here?” he says once they’re out of range of Nick, shutting the door behind them.

Connor shrugs and sits down on the end of the bed.  “I don’t know, I thought stuff might be easier to talk about in person than over the phone.”  He hunches in on himself a little, frowning at the floor.  “And Vegas kind of stopped being fun, anyway.”

Dylan sighs and sits down next to him.  Not too close, because Connor feels a bit like a nervous animal he doesn’t want to spook, but not too far apart either, because he doesn’t want it to seem like he’s mad.  But he doesn’t really know what to say, so he just tries to radiate, like, non-resentment and waits for Connor to say something.

It takes a while, but eventually he speaks.

“This is kind of…”  he trails off, then takes a deep breath.  “I thought it might have been you.  Before I even got to the records office, I thought...it was possible.”

“You…”  That was not what Dylan was expecting him to say.  “What?”

“I don’t mean I knew the whole time or anything, but it seemed like the most likely thing.”  Connor looks up to the ceiling and sighs. “I wouldn’t have married a girl,” he says, “because I don’t like girls. I mean, girls are fine as, like, people, but. I don’t. Not in a marrying kind of…” He makes a frustrated noise.

“Oh,” Dylan says, blinking. His heart does this weird little hopping jump in his chest. “You mean you’re…”

“Gay,” Connor finishes for him, a bit sharply. “Yeah.”

He’s sort of glaring, wide-eyed and so tense all over he’s practically vibrating with it, and it takes Dylan a second to understand that it’s because he’s, like, fucking terrified.  But for once he’s not asking Dylan what he should do, he’s just doing it.

“Hey,” Dylan says, trying to sound soothing. His voice sounds weird, but it’s soft at least. “Well, that’s...I mean, that’s okay.”

“No it isn’t, Dylan,” Connor snaps. “You said yourself, marriages are on the public record, I’m a fucking NHL player, people are going to find out we got married and then I’ll be forced to come out and it is one thousand per cent not okay.”

Dylan winces. “Okay, well, for starters the AHL isn’t exactly a queer-friendly paradise either,” he says, which is so not the point but he’s reeling a little bit, so his brain finds that one point and latches on to it.  “We’re both hockey players, we’re in this together, so like. I get it. I just meant there’s nothing wrong with being gay.”

“I know there’s nothing _wrong_ with it,” Connor scowls. “Thanks for the straight validation though.”

Dylan’s so startled he does an actual double take, like someone in a cartoon.

“I’m sorry,” he says.  “Did you just call me straight?  What the fuck, Davo.”

Connor blinks.  “Um.  Aren’t you?”

“ _Um_ ,” Dylan repeats, imitating Connor’s confused face.  “Did you forget why we’re having this conversation?  I literally married you two days ago, you asshole.”

The look of total astonishment on Connor’s face would be funny if it wasn’t so fucking ridiculous.  “But...I thought that was like...a joke or something?”

“You…”  Dylan lets out an incredulous little laugh.  “ _You_ thought _I_ got gay married for the lols.  Right.  Okay, sure.  What about all the kissing?” He could ask himself the same question.  Oh wow, he’s an idiot.

“I…” Connor sucks in a breath and his face turns, just, _vividly_ red.

“Did you think I was just being nice?” Dylan presses, smiling a little now, because it’s hard to stay mad at Connor when he’s such a fucking idiot, and when he thinks maybe...maybe...  “How many straight guys do you think would make out with a dude just so they wouldn’t hurt his feelings?”

“Well it sounds dumb when you say it like that,” Connor says weakly.

“Little bit dumb, yeah,” Dylan says.  “So I’m, like, bi or whatever, and you’re gay, and we both just...never said anything?  Why didn’t you tell me?” 

Not that it isn’t a little hypocritical, because he never told Connor either, but being gay seems like it would’ve been harder to gloss over than being bi. Dylan just made a choice to only date girls, and then he never _needed_ to tell anyone because it didn’t come up.  Like, it was still _there_ , but he kept it to himself.  He figured it was just an occupational hazard of being an athlete, like...not being able to eat cake every day or something.

Connor seems to sag in his chair. He looks exhausted. “I didn’t tell anyone. I’ve _never_ told anyone.”

“Anyone?” Dylan says incredulously. “Like, not even your family, or…”

Connor shrugs. “I mean I’ve had some, like, anonymous hookups I guess, so I suppose those guys probably figured it out. But nobody who knows my real name or anything.”  He leans forward and props his elbows on his knees, staring down at his own hands. “By the time I was sure, hockey was already kind of...everything and it just.  It seemed too risky.”

Dylan follows his gaze and realises Connor’s wearing his wedding ring again.  Or still, maybe.  He twists it around on his finger restlessly and Dylan can’t stop looking at it, at the light reflecting off the pale gold.  He wonders what happened to the other one.  It’s his, technically.  He could wear it too, if he wanted.  What does it mean that Connor hasn’t taken his off?

“Well,” Dylan says slowly, “thanks for telling me now, anyway.” 

Connor nods.  “Yeah.  I-- I’m glad, now I have.”

Dylan swallows.  “I bet it feels good to tell someone.  After all that time.”

“I mean, yeah,” Connor looks up and offers him a tentative smile.  “But also it feels good to tell you, specifically.”

“Well, I mean I _am_ your husband.”

He doesn’t know why he says it, maybe because he doesn’t know how to feel so many things at once without making a joke, but Connor laughs and fidgets with his ring again, like he doesn’t even know he’s doing it, and it’s.  It’s good.  They’re going to be okay, he thinks.

“Hey, that reminds me,” Connor says suddenly.  “I guess this is yours.”  He reaches into his pocket and comes out with the other wedding ring.  

Dylan puts his hand out automatically and Connor drops the ring into his palm.  It’s heavy, heavier than it looks, and it’s still warm from Connor’s body heat, and something about that feels heavy too, like a weight in Dylan’s chest.

“You’re uh.  Still wearing yours,” he says lightly.  Connor looks down as if he’d forgotten.

“Oh,” he says.  “I guess I am.  I just.”  He hesitates for a second, and then gives his head a little shake and goes to take it off.

“No, hang on.”

Before he can talk himself out of it, Dylan puts his own ring on.  It fits perfectly on his left hand, which makes him feel like Cinderella or something, and the weight of it on his finger feels both weird and familiar at the same time.  Weird because apart from his Robertson Cup ring, which isn’t exactly everyday jewelry, he’s not sure he’s ever worn a ring before, and familiar because he has the sudden recollection of doing _this_ , specifically, before.  Of having to put his own wedding ring on because Connor’s hands were shaking too much to do it for him like he was supposed to.  That time was in a tacky neon and velvet wedding chapel with an actual Elvis impersonator watching them, but this time feels just as big somehow, alone in his bedroom with just them.  Maybe it’s bigger even, with Nick and Tucson and the rest of his life right there just outside the door, reality waiting to come rushing back in.

He looks up and Connor’s staring at him.

“It’s all coming back to me now,” he says, and Connor lets out this breathless, high pitched little yelp of laughter that sounds more hysterical than like anything is actually funny.

Dylan reaches out and links their fingers together, his left hand and Connor’s right, palm-to-palm.  Connor’s not shaking this time but he looks like he’s holding his breath.

“Are you...does this...I…”

“Forget the married thing for a second,” Dylan says, which is impossible because he’s literally wearing a wedding ring, he can _feel_ the resistance of skin-warm gold between their intertwined fingers, but… “I just want to try this, you know, sober.”

He leans in.

Kissing Connor is completely different here, on the end of his bed with no singing or laughing, no worries about interruptions from random tourists and no cheesy elevator music.  But it’s kind of the same, too.  Connor still tenses up for just a second when Dylan’s mouth brushes against his, and then he melts into the kiss with this tiny little sigh, his grip on Dylan’s hand tightening as the rest of him relaxes.  He brings his free hand up to brush over Dylan’s cheek, curl around his ear.  And then he’s making a small, pleased sound and pressing Dylan backwards onto the bed, and _then_ cataloguing the differences and similarities between the two kisses seems way less important than getting both hands under Connor’s tshirt and just kissing the hell out of him, so Dylan focuses on that.

Kissing Connor is kind of his new favourite thing, and he really doesn’t want to stop.

They make out like that for what feels like ages.  Dylan doesn’t feel any sense of urgency to push anything further than just kissing, but that thought’s in the back of his mind too. He’s just thinking maybe they should, like, have a conversation about that when Connor stops kissing him and says:

“So, we’re still married.”

Oh.  Right.  That.

“I mean, don’t get me wrong, this is...” Connor laughs, “really great, seriously.  But, um.”

“Yeah.”

Dylan sits up.  They’ve kind of migrated further onto the bed in all the kissing, so he shuffles the rest of the way up to the head of the bed and props himself up there, stretching his legs out.  Connor joins him, leaving a little bit of space between them, which Dylan simultaneously hates and thinks is probably a good idea.  At least while they’re discussing important things or whatever. Good to keep a clear head.

“So like,” Connor says, and Dylan tries to ignore the fact that his voice has gone a little rough and his mouth is all red because now is the time to focus.  “It wasn’t a joke.”

“It wasn’t a joke.  Of _course_ it wasn’t a joke.”

He reaches out and lays his right hand over Connor’s left where it’s lying on the mattress between them, and his thumb brushes over Connor’s ring.

“It was stupid, though,” he admits.  

“Stupid, right,” Connor repeats, sounding a little sad.  Dylan sighs.

“We can’t just be married,” he says.  “Do you know what my mom would say if I told her I got married to someone I never even brought home first?”

Connor frowns. “What are you talking about? I’ve met your mom a million times.  She’s seen me cry, she knows my favourite flavour of cookie, I’m not some random stranger.”

“Yeah, she _knows_ you but not like,” Dylan rolls his eyes to try and cover for how dorky he feels, but he knows he’s blushing anyway, “as my boyfriend or anything.”

“Oh,” Connor says, and he blushes too.

Dylan has this moment of panic, like he’s said too much, pushed too far too fast, and then he remembers they _literally got married_ two days ago. Boyfriends is a big step back from _husbands_.

“Yeah,” he says quickly, looking down at their joined hands.  “There are a whole bunch of steps before being married that we just skipped right over and...I don’t know, if we’re going to do this, I kind of want to go back and enjoy them.”

“If we’re going to do this?” Connor says.  “If we’re going to...what...be husbands?”

“No, I meant…” Well, not _no_ , not never, but not…  “I wasn’t thinking that far ahead,” Dylan says, flustered.  “I meant, like.  Date.  Or whatever.”

Connor’s smile is small, at first, a little curl at the corner of his mouth like he’s trying to hold it in.  Then it bursts across his face in a goofy laugh.  “Or whatever,” he says, and knocks his shoulder into Dylan’s.  “I didn’t know you could get all _shy_.”

“Shut up,” Dylan says.  Husbands is too big for right now, too heavy and serious and he just can’t wrap his head around putting Connor and _my husband_ in the same sentence, like holy shit.  He’s twenty years old, for fuck’s sake.  But on the other hand… “Don’t you think we could be, like.   Boyfriends, instead?”

Connor takes a deep breath, and Dylan realises he’s holding his.  Then Connor holds up his hand and waves his fingers, ring flashing.

“Can I still keep this, though?” he says.  “I mean.  I kind of liked being married.”

The breath Dylan was holding rushes out of him in a relieved gust of laughter.  “You were _terrified_ of being married.”

“Well, sure,” Connor says, and he leans his head on Dylan’s shoulder, “but that was before.”

Dylan’s voice comes out all soft and fond and dumb sounding, but he doesn’t really mind.  “Before what?”

“Before, like.  Boyfriends.”

Dylan finds he can’t stop smiling.

*

The annulment is pretty straightforward, in the end.

It turns out you can’t file for an annulment as a couple, and it feels a bit weird when you get a serious legal letter saying your actual boyfriend didn’t mean to marry you, and wouldn’t have done it at all if he hadn’t been too drunk to know better, but once it’s all settled they can laugh about it.  Luckily Dylan doesn’t have to understand the legal side of it much, because Connor’s agent and his lawyer do most of the heavy lifting.

Obviously Dylan has to tell his agent too, just in case it ever comes out, but everyone’s pretty confident they can just wave it off as dumb kids playing a really over the top prank.  Actually, Connor’s PR lady says, it might even be good for his image, make him seem more youthful and more...well...uh...don’t take this the wrong way, honey, but… _normal_.  Connor reports this outrage to Dylan over the phone and Dylan has to put the phone down and walk away, he’s laughing so hard.

They don’t tell them everything.  Connor doesn’t want to come out any time soon - maybe not ever, he’s already the face of enough things without being the face of gay hockey as well - and honestly Dylan thinks five minutes into a relationship is a little early for that anyway, even if it is them, even if they’re already the kind of people who get married before they actually decide to date each other.  So they keep that part to themselves.  They’ve got plenty of time to think about that stuff later.

“Besides,” Dylan tells the phone propped up on the pillow beside him during a late night facetime session, “You’ve got other stuff to worry about right now anyway.  Big plans to make before March.”

Connor frowns, confused.  “March?  D’you mean April?  ‘Cause I’m all for, like, defying expectations and whatever but I don’t really think--”

“Not the playoffs,” Dylan scoffs.  “I’m talking about something way more important than that.”

Connor makes this bewildered face, like: _more important than the playoffs??  Surely not!_

“Ahem.”  Dylan starts checking things off on his fingers.  “For _your_ twenty first birthday, I skipped practice, flew to a totally different state, introduced you to Celine Dion _and_ married you all in the space of one day.  How are you going to top all that for mine?”

“Okay first of all,” Connor says, “that was not Celine Dion.”

Dylan, who has long since deleted the photo of the random fancy elevator lady from his phone, sniffs indignantly.  “That was Celine Dion and I will believe it until my dying day,” he says.  “And anyway, I think the gift of _me_ ought to be good enough, even without Celine Dion.”

Connor shakes his head, smiling exasperatedly.  The angle of the phone makes it look like he’s turning his face into the pillow to hide his fond expression, and Dylan wishes he were really here next to him, misses him with a sudden fierceness that makes his chest hurt.  He can just see a hint of gold under the neck of Connor’s shirt, the chain Dylan knows he’s been wearing his ring on since he left Tucson.  Dylan’s wearing one just like it.

“Yeah, I’d say so,” Connor says softly.  His smile is sleepy and slow and probably the best thing Dylan’s ever seen.  “I guess you have a point.  But I’m sure I’ll think of something.”

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Get up and shake the glitter off your clothes, now](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14208210) by [Signe_chan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Signe_chan/pseuds/Signe_chan)




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